Place des Festivals transformed

Place des festivals has been transformed by a setting created by Michel Marsolais. He has permeated it with the cosmic vision of the First Peoples and drawn upon the inspiration of contemporary Indigenous artists who convey the rich spiritual and artistic heritage of the land in their own style.

Anishnabe artist Caroline Monnet ( carolinemonnet.ca ) of the AM collective designed the striking and luminous visual identity for the site; Athanore assisted her in her multimedia creation.

Meaningful architecture

The great central teepee evokes the vertical axis uniting the sky, the earth and the underwater world. At the apex, a goose in flight recalls the birds that carried Atahensic, the Skywoman, on the first day of the world. At ground level, the turtle represents the sea world and her shell the earth’s crust, which she carries on her back.

The longhouse, where the screenings sponsored by Canal D will be held, is architecture in the Iroquois tradition, thus very typical of Montreal.

The teepees (Amerindian nations) and the tupik (Inuit) are forms of textile architecture evoking the prairies, the taiga and the tundra.

The cervids in the fountains are references to the animal kingdom and the nourishing forest; the water sprays represent the soul that instils life into creation.